‘We’re already overwhelmed’: Students with disabilities miss class during the first week of school

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Robert Brown and his wife moved to Newark after 10 years of living in Florida, where they faced challenges in getting special education services for their two sons who have autism.

Their children, Warren, 9, and Nathaniel, 6, are both nonverbal and require speech, applied behavior analysis, and occupational therapies. Nathaniel has a more severe disability, Brown said, and requires the same services as his older brother along with behavioral therapy and a classroom aide.

After enrolling his sons in Newark Public Schools in July using the Newark Enrolls application online, he thought they were all set.

But on Sept. 3, Newark Public Schools’ first day of school, Brown took his sons to McKinley Elementary School, the school they were supposed to attend, only to be told McKinley had space for Warren, but not for Nathaniel. The younger boy has been forced to stay home ever since — missing the crucial first week of a school year as well as much-needed services that help with Nathaniel’s disability.

The Browns are not the only family whose return to school has been marked by confusion and disruption. Several other parents of children with disabilities told Chalkbeat Newark that on the first day of school, they were told their child did not have a school placement. Other parents said they were told their child was enrolled at a different school.

The issues families are grappling with this year speak to a growing need in the district where an increasing number of students require special education services. This school year, roughly half of Newark Public Schools’ nearly 40,000 students is made up of vulnerable students in need of additional support and resources. This fall, roughly 7,000 students need special education services and another 11,000 are English language learners .

The district said it’s not experiencing a problem with enrollment and that those seeking a placement can visit the Newark Enrolls website or the school closest to their home for direct assistance and support, Paul Brubaker, Newark Public Schools communication director, said in a Sept. 6 email to Chalkbeat. Students who have completed the enrollment process and are placed at school receive the services and accommodations they are entitled to from their first day of attendance, Brubaker added.

But Brown said that’s not what his family has experienced.

After a plan to move to New York fell through, the family scrambled to secure an apartment in Newark over the summer. Brown said he enrolled his sons in the district by using the Newark Enrolls application. By early August, he had already sent the district his children’s Individualized Education Program, a written plan that outlines the services a student with a disability needs in school, along with a list of 10 schools he would prefer his children to attend.

“We’re going through the motions, but it’s frustrating, you know because I did everything early, I figured that, you know, that would have helped,” Brown said. “I know there’s an overcrowding problem, but you know, he needs to go somewhere. He can’t be out of school, this isn’t the 1700s.”

Brown says he’s reached out to the district’s Board of Education and a special needs coordinator at the state’s department of education, which are in the process of finding a school for Nathaniel but the principal at McKinley told him no seats are available for students with disabilities across the city.

And the clock is ticking. Brown is set to begin work in a few weeks, while Nathaniel sits at home along with his sick grandmother who is cared for by Brown’s wife.

Nathaniel, who has severe autism, will run around the house and scream when he’s told not to do something, Brown said. The family goes to bed by 10:30 p.m. every night so Nathaniel can sleep through the night but often he wakes up around 3:30 a.m. full of energy. His son’s neurologist prescribed medication for Nathaniel but in the end, Brown said, his son needs the proper services to help him manage his disability.

Like Brown, Alyssa Drysdale was told on the first day of school that her kindergarten daughter Eva, who has an IEP, was not enrolled at the school she was supposed to attend: Quitman Street Elementary School where she had gone to pre-K last year.

Drysdale waited over an hour on the first day of classes in the school’s gym with her daughter Eva, who requires speech therapy and may need an aide this school year as she can be easily triggered in a classroom environment. Drysdale wasn’t told why she and other parents had to wait until she spoke with school staff who told her that Eva wasn’t enrolled in the school, Drysdale said.

The school’s principal and her staff were working to find a placement for Eva when Drysdale realized she needed to check her car. As she was walking out, she saw her car getting towed.

“I see my car in the back of a tow truck, and I had to pick up Eva, and she’s so heavy, and I’m literally chasing the tow truck down. Like, please, oh my God, can I have my car back now? I wasn’t expecting to take this long,” Drysdale said.

When she went back to the school, Drysdale “just wanted to cry there, like I was so sad.” She spoke with a caseworker who said to wait for a call from the district with a placement for Eva. In the meantime, Drysdale said, they offered a take-home packet so Eva could do school work at home.

Instead, Drysdale said she returned the next day to drop Eva off at the school.

“I do work overnight, but the only time I do get to rest is during school, so I ended up dropping her in the morning, but this situation was a little weird to me,” Drysdale said.

The next day, a caseworker told Drysdale they would take Eva while the school figured out a permanent placement for her. But Drysdale isn’t sure if her daughter will move to another classroom or when her speech therapy, which Eva needs so she can learn to express herself better, will begin, Drysdale said.

“She can express her needs,” Drysdale said, ”but as far as being in depth, she wouldn’t be able to explain herself.”

Newark students with disabilities face recurring problems

Brown’s and Drysdale’s enrollment issues are just a fraction of the problems parents of students with disabilities have faced in Newark. Students with disabilities also face greater learning challenges as they have been some of the hardest hit by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, with some requiring makeup services from learning disruptions.

In 2019, the New Jersey Department of Education cited the district for failing to meet key mandates related to education plans for students with disabilities.

In 2022, the state department also found the district had problems with reporting in education plans, notifying parents of meetings, and missing meetings with parents and students with disabilities as part of responsibilities mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The state ordered the district to take corrective action by November 2022.

This year’s enrollment problems are also affecting high school students. Tameerah Green’s son, Jaimir Velez, is a 10th grade student with an IEP, who last year, attended Eagle Academy located inside Weequahic High School. On Aug. 16, Green received a letter from the district confirming that her son’s district-provided transportation would arrive on the first day of school and drop him off at Eagle Academy.

But on Sept. 3, after her son was picked up by his bus and dropped off at Eagle Academy, Green received a call from Clark Thompson, the school’s child study team social worker, notifying her Jaimir was supposed to attend Malcolm X Shabazz High school, not Eagle. No one had told her about the school change prior to that morning.

Jaimir has a learning disability and needs a stable environment with familiar teachers to avoid sparking behavioral issues, Green said. The mother sent Jaimir to Eagle Academy the next day, on Sept. 4, but when he returned home, Jaimir said a teacher told him he wasn’t supposed to be at the school.

On the third day of school, Jaimir started to complain about headaches and stomach cramps, which Green feels is a result of not feeling welcomed at the school. Jaimir hasn’t been back to school since Sept. 4.

“I took him to the doctor today to make sure everything was fine but I know where it’s coming from,” said Green on Monday.

Advocate Nadine Wright-Arbubakrr has a long history of working with Newark families to secure school services such as transportation and, through her nonprofit Nassan’s Place, offers summer camps for children with disabilities . But this is the first time she has heard about parents of students with disabilities facing enrollment issues during the first days of school.

“How is it possible that these parents continue to deal with these problems every school year? It’s just not fair,” said Wright-Arbubakrr, who founded Nassan’s Place more than 10 years ago to help families navigate the problems she once faced as a Newark parent of a student with autism.

With the second week of school underway, Brown and his family are hoping the district can find a school for Nathaniel soon. In the meantime, he’s looking at schools outside of the district, including The Deron School of New Jersey , a private K-12 school that offers programs for students with disabilities at its Montclair and Union campuses.

But ultimately, he hopes Newark can provide his youngest son with a public school education, “because that’s why we came here.”

“I’m going to start working in maybe a couple weeks, but I’m not going to be here, then everything, mostly, is going to be on my wife,” Brown said. “We’re already overwhelmed.”

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Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org .